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Monday 9:30am - 3pm Tuesday 9:30am - 3pm Wednesday 9:30am - 3pm Thursday 9:30am - 3pm Friday 9:30am - 3pm

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Penn State Botany Greenhouse

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Penn State Botany Greenhouse

Welcome to the official page for Penn State’s Eberly College of Science’s Botany Greenhouse!

10/28/2026

Our Maxillaria rufescens is blooming in the orchid room along with a few other orchids with amazing scents. The orchid room smells wonderful right now! Unfortunately, the scent is not from the blooming Maxillaria though we wish it was. You will have to get a little closer to smell its wonderful aroma. Maxillaria rufescens has star-like yellow or reddish-brown flowers with orange-spotted lips that emerge directly from the base of mature pseudobulb. The flowers emit a heavenly vanilla scent.

10/21/2026

One of our Brugmansia, also known as Angel’s trumpet, is blooming! This plant which is native to South America, produces dramatic, pendant, trumpet-shaped flowers. They produce a lovely fragrance that tends to be emitted in the evening to attract its nocturnal pollinators, however, on cloudy days we have found that the Brugmansia in the Botany Greenhouse collection are tricked into emitting their fragrance during the day. The plants are primarily pollinated at night by hawkmoths and bats, which are drawn to their pendulous, strongly scented tubular flowers. Even if you don’t get the chance to smell its beautiful fragrance, its floral display is something to see! While beautiful, be careful because the plant is toxic.

10/19/2026

We have known our Sinningia helleri in our collections is quite rare, however, we didn’t know the interesting story behind it. Sinningia helleri is the first species described under that name, in 1825. It was grown and valued for many years as a fine decorative plant suitable for greenhouses and similar environments, however, it was lost to cultivation in 1907. No wild populations had been described since its first collection, and it was thought to be extinct. A small and threatened population was discovered in Brazil in 2015, and the species is now again in cultivation. This plant has an exposed tuber called a caudex, glossy green to silvery-gray tapered leaves with purplish-red undersides, and clusters of white-to-pale-yellow flowers that emerge from a vivid dark red calyx.

10/16/2026

Today, Ruthie, one of the greenhouse interns, is working on propagating some Green Ball Dianthus cuttings. This Dianthus is commonly used in the floral industry and is called Green Trick Carnation. They are a unique, petal-free variety that has fluffy, bright lime-green globe-shaped blooms that look like mossy spheres. We are hoping to add some of this unique plant to the collections.
If you are a Penn State student and interested in working in the greenhouse next semester propagating plants, pruning and other greenhouse tasks, we are currently looking to fill our internship positions for the Spring 2027 semester. The internship requires a few hours each week in the greenhouse and completion of a project to benefit the greenhouse and its visitors!

10/12/2026

Some of the orchids in the Lloyd Driver Orchid Collection have been putting on quite the show this month. Pictured are a few of the orchids that are blooming!

10/07/2026

Throughout the greenhouse, you can find our Hibiscus waimeae blooming. This hibiscus is a rare tree native to Hawaii. It is one of the few hibiscus species with fragrant flowers. The flowers while beautiful only last for a day or two. The species includes two subspecies, ssp. waimeae, which we house in the biology greenhouse, and the critically endangered ssp. hannerae, which features much smaller flowers and lives in just a few northwestern valleys in Hawaii.

10/06/2026

We learn something new everyday in the greenhouse. While watering today we noticed black spots on the leaves of our Ficus deltoidea. It gave us a little scare since we thought it might have a disease, however, after a little research we came across some fascinating information. Ficus deltoidea, also known as the mistletoe fig, has distinctive black or dark brown modified pores in the corners of major leaf veins on the underside of the leaves. These pores are called hydathodes. They also appear as small golden dots on the top of the leaf and are able to exude water and salts in the early morning.

09/28/2026

Today the greenhouse staff is working on adding a few new plants to the collection! A local plant enthusiast donated three bananas: Truly Tiny, Super Dwarf Cavendish and Kokopo to the collections. We were also gifted some pawpaw seedlings and a cardamom plant. Did you know the Kokopo banana is a short season banana that can go from planting to fruiting in just 7-8 short months? The fruit is high in vitamin A and beta carotene. We are super excited about these additions.

09/23/2026

It isn’t the right time of year for this post, just yet, but winter is right around the corner. The greenhouse is home to Dendropemon caribaeus, which is more commonly known as mistletoe. These unique plants are hemi-parasitic epiphytes that grow on the branches of various trees and shrubs, extracting water and nutrients via specialized structures called haustoria. One of the greenhouse’s interns, Ruthie, recently attached some mistletoe seeds to a small citrus tree and it appears that two of the seeds have germinated. Mistletoe seeds are coated in viscin, a thick, extremely sticky substance, that allows the seed to firmly attach to a host plant. This acts as a natural glue and is vital for propagation. The viscin will cement the seed in place once dry so it cannot be washed away by tropical rains or blown off by wind. The seed will germinate on the bark and attempt to form a connection point called haustorium to pe*****te the host's tissue. Pictured are the two seeds that are attempting to form the haustorium. Pictured is also a brown, dried out seed that unfortunately failed to germinate. Ruthie also helped prep some cuttings from our citrus plants so that we can eventually try to expand our mistletoe collection.

09/21/2026

Our Aristolochia gigantea is flowering! Rather than producing the undesirable smell of rotting flesh, like other plants in the Aristolochia genus, A. gigantea produces a scent that is described as citrusy or musty when luring in pollinators. Pictured is a large, opened flower and then a smaller immature flower.

Address

Buckhout Lab
University Park, PA
16803

Opening Hours

Monday	9:30am - 3pm
Tuesday	9:30am - 3pm
Wednesday	9:30am - 3pm
Thursday	9:30am - 3pm
Friday	9:30am - 3pm

Website

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